It turns out that the pioneering sex researcher William Masters in "Masters of Sex" is most exposed when cloaked in a plush white bathrobe.

The July 27 episode of the highly praised Showtime drama had viewers more on edge than the moments before a physician delivers test results. The episode pivoted on Michael Sheen's stellar performance as the famous sex researcher who slowly peeled back the Band-Aid on a very troubled childhood and then quickly re-applied it.

After delivering a baby with ambiguous genitalia, and later becoming incensed by the harsh reaction from the newborn's father, Masters found himself reflecting on his own struggles with masculinity to research partner Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) during a secret hotel rendezvous. With nothing but a bathrobe as his armor, Masters became the patient.

"He did me a favor," Sheen said in the scene where he tells of suffering a broken nose at the hands of his father at age 14. "He made me the man I am today."

It was a commanding point in the slow-burn of the icy character as the modest-performing show settles into its second season. For the man who has thrived in Hollywood's world of historical fiction — playing real-life characters in film such as David Frost in "Frost/Nixon" and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in "The Queen" — the Welsh native has established himself as one of television's premiere actors. His depiction of the sex researcher as one of TV's least sympathetic anti-heroes has been revered by critics — many took issue with his omission from this year's Emmy race.

Over a recent breakfast, Sheen reviewed the intricacies of the confounding character whose work help set the stage for the sexual revolution. As he cut into two poached eggs, the 45-year-old actor motioned to the oozing yolk with his eyes.

"That will never be Bill," he said. "You won't see his feelings spill out, but he gave us a little something in that episode."

After a pause, he elaborated.

"The road to happiness can often be a road of awfulness in getting there," he added. "Bill has become the person he's become and he's adapted to life and dealt with things the ways he's dealt with them because of stuff that happened to him when he was younger, but it's not really working for him. What it's created is kind of a prison. And, yeah, he'd like to be free from that prison, but there's a part of him that made that prison for a reason, and he doesn't want to leave it. It's too scary. And I find that so damn interesting, I have to say. It's like he's the Walter White journey in reverse."

When viewers met Masters, he was a prominent but uptight OB-GYN physician at Washington University School of Medicine who was also a detached husband to a doting wife (Caitlin FitzGerald). He soon became fixated on the study of sex, a taboo subject particularly for an academic in the 1950s. Eventually, to pursue his passion, he enlisted Johnson to help conduct research — the two eventually began a sexual relationship.

The near constant in Masters' character is that he's a jerk much of the time. It's a boldly honest approach to a character that dares to buck TV's hang-ups with likability, Sheen said. And like Masters, Sheen isn't here to play nice and make friends.

Michelle Ashford, who developed the series from Thomas Maier's biography of the same name, initially gave consideration to making Masters slightly warmer and more palatable for viewers. The decision was being weighed during a time when audiences were actually rooting for "Breaking Bad's" meth-dealing Walter White.

But Sheen fought against softening his character to please viewers.

"There's a scene in Oliver Stone's film 'Nixon' where [Richard] Nixon points to a painting of JFK, and he says, 'When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are,'" he said in his best Anthony Hopkins-as-Nixon impersonation. "Most TV characters are who people want to be, even if it's Walter White.

"Sure, Don Draper isn't a pleasant character, but he looks gorgeous, and everyone wants to sleep with him. I don't look like that! And I want to make that a strength. At the same time, I have an absolute responsibility to be totally rigorous in making sure that he's a real person. Why shouldn't the audience have a character that's about all their worst qualities?"

The role was presented to Sheen during his run as Hamlet in a controversial production in London in late 2011. The call was Ashford's first glimpse of Sheen's intensity.

"He was really listening more than he was asking a ton of questions," Ashford said. "Since then, the back and forth between the two of us as to who Bill is and what makes him tick and what makes him weak is a true collaboration. You can't even say he's been invaluable to the process. He just is the process. We talk on the phone, by email, in his trailer — we talk all the time about this character. The way we're able to follow this character for a long time really stirs something in Michael."

Over breakfast, Sheen displays an equal curiosity over the medium's state of metamorphosis — the way it's consumed; its multi-platformness. The fascination has spurred him to begin developing his own projects for television. In doing research, he's read over some TV outlines — among them was the original series overview of HBO's "True Detective."

"In the very opening line, it's described as a 'literary,'" Sheen said. "It hit me like a bullet because I've been thinking about that. I feel like that is what this new version of TV is kind of becoming. It's a cross between a novel and a film. The way you can layer and reveal characters in this space is just so fascinating to me.

"It's why I'm OK with being the [jerk] in your living room. At least I'm not a [jerk] trying to cover it up."

After years in front of the camera, it looks like Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo is ready to go behind the scenes.

The actress will executive produce Debt, a satire of the 2008 financial meltdown in New York based on Rachel Carey’s 2013 novel of the same name. The project for ABC Family begins a new trend under recently appointed head Tom Ascheim: programs targeted toward older women. The story follows a young woman in her 20s who works as an SAT tutor to pay off her college loans and discovers that everyone she knows is in somebody’s “debt.” Currently in development, the series has not yet hired a writer. The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news.

Pompeo, who recently signed a deal that will keep her on the popular ABC medical drama through its 12th season, first tried her hand at producing with her company Calamity Jane, but was unable to follow through on a script sold to ABC.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
Bravo, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 2006 comedy, starring Meryl Streep as a dictatorial fashion editor, was made only eight years ago, but look at all the players whose stars have ascended since. You start with Anne Hathaway, the sweet center of the film, who was handed her first significant adult role here. But keep going: Other co-stars include Emily Blunt, who just starred opposite Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow; Adrian Grenier, who was just starting to break out as a star of HBO’s Entourage; and Simon Baker, two years before taking his own star-making TV role as The Mentalist.The gang’s all here – along with Stanley Tucci, who, as always, enhances every scene he’s in with a little extra sparkle and intensity.

THE PINK PANTHER
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1963 movie stars David Niven – whose day this is on TCM – as a master thief, and Robert Wagner as his equally suave and sly son. But the movie’s center turns out to be the bumbling detective on their trail: Inspector Jacques Cousteau, played to comic perfection by Peter Sellers. Some aspects of humor, you outgrow through the years – but Clouseau, he always makes me laugh, even just thinking about him. And when he spins that globe, I’m laughing even before he reaches out to stop it from rotating…

LIMITLESS
TNT, 8:00 p.m. ET
You have to respect and applaud Bradley Cooper’s acting choices – not only what he does on screen, but the roles he accepts. TV viewers knew about his good looks and easygoing style by watching him as far back as Alias, but after co-starring in The Hangover, he could have settled into an easy street of unchallenging romantic comedies. Instead, he went for the unexpected – first by starring opposite Robert de Niro in this 2011 modern variation on Flowers for Algernon, then by reteaming with him (and the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence) on Silver Linings Playbook, and now co-starring in Guardians of the Galaxy by providing the voice of a talking raccoon. No kidding. And no, it’s not necessarily a step backwards…

THE GREAT MARTIAN WAR 1913-1917
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
Okay, this is just weird. This 2013 Canadian film is a faux documentary, “interviewing” historians about a reimagining of World War I. Instead, after alien spacecraft land in the forests of Europe, the conflict instead becomes Worlds War I, as former enemies unite on the battlefield to take aim against deadly weaponry from outer space.

EYES WIDE SHUT
Sundance, 9:00 p.m. ET
This 1999 Stanley Kubrick movie captured Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman when they were still a couple, but also captures tensions between their characters that are difficult not to overlay onto their real-life counterparts at the time. Kubrick’s theatrical sexuality and dreamlike direction may seem indulgent in this late-career film – but if you go back and read the original novella that is its source material, it’s almost shocking how faithful this movie adaptation is to the spirit, and the obsessions, of the original. And give me credit: for once, I'm exercising restraint when selecting an accompanying photo.

TV NotesWhen a Novel Crosses Over Time and Television
By Donna j. Plesh, TVWorthWatching.com - Aug. 1, 2014

Diana Gabaldon was working as a research professor in the late 1980s when she decided she wanted to write a novel. One novel led to another until Gabaldon had a wildly successful series on her hands that was a fusion of romance, history and time travel. Now, the first novel, Outlander, has been adapted for a 16-part series of the same name set to premiere on Starz, August, 9 at 9 p.m., ET.

Starz is also making the first full episode available a week earlier (August 2nd) online at Starz.com/Outlander.

Outlander is the genre-mashing story of Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe, top), a married World War II nurse who, in 1945, is swept back in time to 1743 where she is obviously thrown into an unknown world. Early on, she is forced to marry Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), a romantic Scottish warrior.

Tasked with bringing the fan-favorite Outlander story to the small screen is Executive Producer and Writer Ronald D. Moore, no stranger to television or science fiction, with credits including Battlestar Gallactica, Star Trek and Roswell.

During a Television Critics Association panel discussion, Moore said, “My immediate take was (the novel) was a TV show, just the nature of the story, the scope of the story. When we sought out the rights, they were trying to develop a feature [movie] version, but just couldn’t quite make it play because it’s just too big of a story, and all the things that people love about it are about taking your time with the story and developing the characters… you could only really deliver this piece of material in a dramatic series.”

To get the ball rolling, Moore and his producing partner, Maril Davis, met with Gabaldon to talk over story lines, characters and their ideas on adapting the book to the small screen.

Moore continued, “I saw my role from the beginning as, you know, not reinventing this material but adapting it and sort of delivering it… There is a dedicated base of fans who love these books who have read them for many years, and it’s the favorite book to a lot of people. I want to give them their story, but I do have to translate it into a different. We approached the series with an eye towards authenticity towards being real for what really happened in the 18th century and for delivering a real world and not really reinventing it for modern sensibility.”

The series, filmed on location in Scotland, will be broken into two seasons. The first eight episodes will air this year, with the next eight in early 2015.

“Scotland is a character on the show very much,” said Moore. “I mean, it is a love letter to Scotland in many ways. (Balfe and Heughan on location in Scotland, left) We have, predominantly, a Scottish crew, and a lot of people in the surrounding area are helping to support the production, and it was important to us to give it a sense of authenticity to this time and to this place.”

When asked if she feels pressure from fans about her work Gabaldon, present for the same panel said, “Speaking as the writer, I often get asked, ‘Do you feel an obligation to do what your fans want?’ And the answer is absolutely not. I am creating this and would hope that they like it, but my obligation is to the book and the book alone. It’s going to be the best I can make it, and if people like it then I’m happy, but I’m never going to write something just because I think someone else would like it.”

Moore concurs. “That was the attitude I took on Battlestar and Star Trek, which had very devoted, passionate fan bases.”

Gabaldon said she is not writing scripts for the series. “They show me scripts… glimpses of this, that, and the other, and they ask my opinion every now and again. I have been extremely amazed and very touched at the degree to which they trust me,” she said.

Moore said it’s reciprocal. “She trusts us with something that’s very personal to her, that’s her creation, and it’s my job to interpret and try to develop it for another audience. But it was important from the beginning that we have a good relationship with Diana. I’m a writer. She’s a writer. As a writer I wanted her to feel proud of what we do with her work,” he said.

While not a lock for another season, it seems possible, considering Starz recent track record of renewing historical series such as Black Sails and Da Vinci’s Demons. During the TCA press tour, Starz Chief Executive Officer Chris Albrecht said, ”Diana has given us years of great drama. So if it’s as if the audiences and our subscribers are as interested in it as we think, and the fans really get behind it and, you know, tell their friends about it, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t continue Claire’s story over the centuries.”

Simple.TV is an aptly named system for cord cutters looking to harness free over-the-air local TV signals.

By connecting the Simple.TV settop box to your home network and antenna, you can watch local network broadcasts on the Web via Macintosh or Windows computers or on your smartphone, tablet or TV.

Interest in free digital TV has grown in the wake of the June Supreme Court decision about Aereo. Upstart Aereo had been streaming on the Net over-the-air channels in 11 cities, renting subscribers a dime-size antenna in lieu of one erected at their own homes. But the court ruled 6-3 that the practice violated copyright law because Aereo must pay the rights holders, the broadcasters, just as pay-TV services do.

Even before Aereo's setback, Simple.TV had been an option for enhancing broadcast TV. Two years ago, its Kickstarter campaign resulted in the development and release of its first settop box with a single tuner.

Earlier this year, Simple.TV released a new settop box with dual tuners, which allows you to record two programs at the same time or record one and watch another. Simple.TV starts at $199 for the box, plus $50 for an annual Premier subscription that includes remote access — new subscribers can get six months free under a current offer — or $349 for box and a lifetime subscription. Note: You provide your own hard drive to record, pause and rewind video; I connected a 1 Terabyte Seagate drive.

Other new features included the ability to download videos from your computer to mobile devices, and updated apps for Android and iOS devices. You can also connect on Windows phones, Roku and Chromecast devices, as well as Apple TV using Airplay.

I gave Simple.TV a test drive recently and found it very easy to use — once I got it connected and running — and, as promised, it delivered local TV everywhere.

But there is a slight difference between Simple.TV and a competing product, Tablo, that I tried recently.

While Tablo connected wirelessly to my home network, Simple.TV requires an Ethernet connection to your home router. This probably provides a higher-quality connection, but many not be easy or feasible in some homes. In my three-story townhouse, the router is on the lowest level; the best antenna position is on the third floor.

For this test, I took the middle ground. I connected 50 feet of coaxial cable to the Winegard FlatWave antenna that I've used in other projects. Then, I taped it to the second floor kitchen window overlooking the deck.

That allowed me to have the Simple.TV box and the hard drive resting next to the router. If this was to have been a permanent installation, I would have found a way to connect the unused HDTV antenna in the attic.

Setup is done easily over the Web and Simple.TV performed well once it would talk nicely to my hard drive, which had been used on previous experiments. I would recommend an unused drive to avoid any such problems.

The box picked up 40 local channels in the Washington D.C., area — including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS and several independent channels — and the easy-to-read program guide showed what was being broadcast live. I recorded some programs including The Rockford Files, in honor of the late James Garner, who passed away last month, and Masterpiece Mystery, which had the first of the final Agatha Christie: Poirot episodes.

The Rockford Files video was a bit grainy, but remember many digital channels are multiplexed and not high-definition, and it's possible the episodes haven't been remastered in HD. But the Masterpiece Mystery episode looked crisp and clear on my laptop when I connected on the Web at the office.

I also connected to Simple.TV via a browser on my laptop via a USB modem and an iPad in a doctor's office and a hospital, allowing me to watch the local and national broadcast news programs. Then, I downloaded the Simple.TV channel on Roku and was able to watch Masterpiece Mystery in fine high-def quality on the big-screen TV.

And up to five users can connect at home or away to see up to two different live broadcasts or one broadcast and a recorded show. I could see Simple.TV serving many different consumers, including transplanted NFL fans who still have family that could pick up local broadcasts of their beloved home team. Rather than pay for NFL Sunday Ticket, they could watch using Simple.TV.

"There's a cord cutter crowd, for sure, but there's also a secondary market of those folks who are looking for just more flexible ways to access content," says Simple.TV CEO Mark Ely. "We have a whole generation of folks who are growing up with on-demand video services asking, 'Why do I have to get all this stuff through cable? Isn't there a better way to get the live TV broadcast content the same way that I get Hulu or Netflix or Amazon or other services?'"

Critic's NotesBelieve It Or Not, Atheists, TV for YouAtheist TV Has Its Premiere, on Roku and Online
By Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times - Aug. 2, 2013

Atheists are angry, and watch out, because now they have a television channel.

This week the organization American Atheists announced the premiere of Atheist TV, available through the streaming service Roku and over the Internet. That news will certainly prompt assorted knee-jerk reactions in some quarters, and perhaps some confusion:

“Atheist TV? It’ll be full of incest and smut and debaucheries of all kinds. Oh, wait; that’s HBO.”

“Atheist TV? It’ll be godless wiccans and flesh-eating zombies and serial killers and all manner of other people who lack the Judeo-Christian morals that built America. Oh, wait; that’s practically every mainstream network and cable channel.”

At a party on Tuesday night celebrating the premiere, David Silverman, president of American Atheists, described a channel that won’t be any of the sordid things that certain religious types might envision, but that will be a challenge to a lot of things those people hold dear. The channel, he said, will “provide a breadth of content, from science to politics to comedy, all centered around our common freedom from religion.”

American Atheists, founded in 1963, is a serious organization that advocates the absolute separation of church and state and a view of life that emphasizes the here and now and provable. The channel, Mr. Silverman said in the first streamed broadcast, will have no psychics, no ghost hunters, no “science fiction presented as science fact,” and will be “a place we can call our own, where we can speak the truth as frankly as we want.” It intends, he said, “to promote the idea that religion can and should be criticized.”

That will make it a lonely outpost. Religion isn’t hard to find on television, including some negative images of it — see the debate over the Muslim characters on the new FX drama “Tyrant” — but not many outlets that rely on advertising dollars are willing to ask probing questions about religion as big business, religion as an instigator of wars, religion as a suppressor of intellectual inquiry.

At first, Atheist TV will be limited, offering interviews with leading atheists, film from atheist conventions and other content from the Richard Dawkins Foundation and like-minded organizations. But it has plans to introduce original programming.

Among the people helping to bring that about, the channel has announced, will be the producer Liz Bronstein, whose credits include reality shows like “Whale Wars,” on Animal Planet, part of Discovery Communications — a company that Mr. Silverman slammed hard on Tuesday night.

“The TV networks kowtow to the liars who make money off of misinformation,” he said, singling out for special contempt outlets that mix silly supernatural gunk with more serious science and nature shows.

“The Discovery Channel treats ghosts like they’re real,” he said, adding later, “Bigfoot, psychics, aliens, ghosts, spirits, gods, devils — all bunk, all pushed by the so-called truthful and scientific stations in an effort to placate the waning religion segment at the expense of the growing segment of atheists who should be, but are not, their target audience.”

Whew. If he sounds peeved, well, it’s hard being an atheist in the United States, where plenty of people behave in decidedly un-Christian ways, but to speak ill of Christianity or other religions can be career-ending. How low in the hierarchy are American atheists? Dogs had their own channel before atheists did. Sarah Palin, too.

So expect a fair amount of bluntness when Atheist TV gets rolling. The outlet may have enemies in Very High Places: At the Tuesday event, seven minutes into the streaming of the first broadcast, the Internet feed in the room gave out. But if that was God sending a message, Mr. Silverman wasn’t deterred.

For the second year in a row, Spanish-language television network Univision nabbed the No. 1 spot in prime time among 18-to-49-year-old viewers during the July sweeps.

Univision Communications said its flagship Univision network outpaced its English-language competitors during the prime-time hours among the demographic group most important to advertisers.

Univision Chief Executive Randy Falco said maintaining the No. 1 position for two consecutive July sweeps "validates our strong position in the industry amidst increased competition."

The company also said its station in Los Angeles ranked as No. 1 most watched station in the country during prime time and throughout the day among the key demographic. Its New York station ranked second.

"I'm not surprised," Alberto Mier y Terán, the executive vice president of Univision Television Group, told the Los Angeles Times.

Mier y Terán credits the July sweep to Univision's "strong programming," with the network airing local news and popular telenovelas such as "Lo Que la Vida Me Robó."

In years past, the major broadcast networks largely hung a "Gone Fishing" sign during the summer months, content to run repeat episodes of their scripted dramas and comedies. But last year, CBS found great success running scripted originals during the summer with "Under the Dome," and this year added more originals.

Still, Univision proved to be more popular with viewers under the age of 50.

Univision also debuted "Mi Corazón es Tuyo," a new telenovela that has been well received among the desired demo. The show, which airs at 8 p.m., averages 3.6 million total viewers, according to Univision.

Roughly 4 million viewers also tuned in to the network's annual Premios Juventud awards show, which aired on July 17. According to Nielsen ratings, it earned a rating of 1.7 in the key demo. Broadcast from Florida, the 11th annual awards show featured big-name stars such as Pitbull, Enrique Iglesias, Romeo Santos and Juanes.

"Our programming keeps getting better because we focus on our community and issues relevant to our community. ... People are engaging more than they ever have before," Mier y Terán said.

"It’s a top priority of ours to continue to deliver world-class, culturally-relevant content that our viewers crave -- in all of the ways that they want it -- and we’re confident that as long as we continue to do so, we’ll remain at the forefront," Falco echoed in his statement.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., talks to "Fox News Sunday" at 10 a.m. on WOFL-Channel 35. Other guests are Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control. The program will salute Ivanka Trump of the Trump Organization as a "Power Player." The panel will be Juan Williams, Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journal, Ron Fournier of National Journal and Michael Needham of Heritage Action for America.

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., are guests on "State of the Union" at 9 a.m. and noon on CNN. Carl Bernstein and Dan Rather look back at the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's resignation. The panel will be Newt Gingrich, co-host of CNN's "Crossfire"; Republican strategist Ana Navarro; political commentator Marc Lemont Hill; and Democratic strategist Erikka Knuti.

John Dean, author of "The Nixon Defense," talks to CBS' "Face the Nation" at 10:30 a.m. on WKMG-Channel 6. Other guests are Dr. Frieden of the CDC; Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; Valerie Jarrett, White House senior adviser; former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. The panel will be David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Aaron David Miller for the Wilson Center and Margaret Brennan of CBS.

Dr. Peter Piot, co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN are guests on "Fareed Zakaria GPS" at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on CNN. Another guest is Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's minister of foreign affairs.

Glenn Beck talks to "Reliable Sources" at 11 a.m. on CNN. Other guests are Rula Jebreal, foreign policy analyst; Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Benjamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., talks to "Sunday Morning Futures" at 10 a.m. on Fox News Channel. Other guests are Dennis Ross, former Middle East adviser to President Obama; Marty Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University; and Harvey Pitt, former SEC chairman. The panel will be journalist Judith Miller; Mike Crofton, CEO of Philadelphia Trust; and GOP strategist Ed Rollins.

Christine Brennan of USA Today will be a guest on "MediaBuzz" at 11 a.m. on Fox News Channel. Other guests are Lauren Ashburn, Jonah Goldberg and Janine Zacharia, former correspondent for The Washington Post.

Dressed in khakis, sweater vest and and necktie, Joel Brady looks the part of his vocation: college professor. But on television, Mr. Brady demonstrates he’s not your average Joel.

Fans of NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” know that the program — which airs on Monday nights and subsequently on cable offspring Esquire — features great feats of strength and agility as contestants tackle a pitfall-filled obstacle course.

It’s based on a popular Japanese show, “Sasuke”, and for the past few summers, NBC has gained solid ratings among the younger demographic broadcasting the American version. Mr. Brady, an elite-level rock climber, is scheduled to appear in the Denver regional finals Monday.

Dozens of contestants were deemed fit to tackle one of five first-round courses in Miami, Denver, St. Louis, Los Angeles’ Venice Beach or Dallas this season. The stages became increasingly more difficult, but those who survived won their ticket to the national finals in Las Vegas.

Nationals took place earlier this summer, with the grand champion winning $500,000. NBC will air the finale Aug. 11.

Mr. Brady isn’t the only Pittsburgh-area contestant to take a stab at the course, but he has been promoted by the network as the “vampire ninja” (more on that, later). On reality television, packaging personalities is almost as important as recognizing talent, and Mr. Brady said he knew this when he submitted his dryly funny audition tape.

“I knew I had to tell my story, something compelling,” said Mr. Brady, who has a doctorate in religious studies. The son of Protestant missionaries — a family profession dating back to the early 1900s — he grew up partly in Japan but also in Economy, Beaver County.

Although he teaches a variety of classes in the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, one — Vampire: Blood and Empire — got him noticed. His other courses include Behind Bars: Cross-Cultural Representations of the Prison in the 20th Century and Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture.

His first appearance aired June 23, drew 5.5 million viewers and was the top-rated show in the 18-49 demographic that night. The producers provided a brief video introduction in which he‘s shown in one of the Cathedral of Learning’s Nationality classrooms.

“I teach a course about vampires,” he says in the film. “It’s an interesting course that covers the history, anthropology, sociology, literature and film of vampires.

“It’s also the course that your parents are mad at you for taking and wasting all their tuition money for.”

Once he was chosen to appear, he upped his training and flew out to Denver four weeks later.

All this took place in May, when a freak snowstorm led to plunging temperatures and icy conditions on the course. Because the course is set over water, failure at any point means a cold dunk in the drink.

Would-be warriors must be strong, agile and bold. But the moment Mr. Brady lined up for his first run, he realized he’d need luck as well.

“There was a freak snowstorm in Denver that weekend, and it was subfreezing out there,” he said. The deceptively simple first obstacle — a set of platforms mounted at 45-degree angles — took out quite a few contestants.

“Those steps were literally a sheet of ice,“ he said. ”On the next obstacle, I just went into survival mode. I was like a deer in headlights.”

After crossing a rolling log and leaping to safety, he reached the part of the course where climbers shine.

The Devil’s Steps resembles an inverted “V” that must be traversed through hand-over-hand climbs. After easily working his way through (”I was sort of in my element“) he eventually reached the dreaded Warped Wall.

Warriors are given three chances to run up the concave side of a 15-foot-high wall. Mr. Brady failed to reach the top, but his time to that point was fast enough to qualify him for the next round.

Just being on the show scratched an itch. A few years back, Mr. Brady wrote some magazine articles about friends who‘d competed on “American Ninja Warrior.”

“Most rock climbers who look at that show think: ‘That was made for me,’ ” he said.

Keeping in mind that it is, after all, a television show, Mr. Brady went all out with the professorial look.

“It’s really what I wear when I teach; the only difference is I had the New Balance shoes. It’s not really a costume, just my usual clothes, out of context.”

TV Review‘Partners,’ tired joke after tired jokeThis new FX sitcom is a platform for two stars of comedy
By Tom Conroy, Media Life Magazine - Aug. 1, 2013

When experienced TV viewers hear the title “Partners,” they know that “mismatched” is implied. That assumption is strengthened, in the case of FX’s new sitcom “Partners,” when we learn that the title characters are played by Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence.

But in fact, the partners aren’t mismatched: Although the script keeps telling us that they’re polar opposites, both Grammer and Lawrence’s characters are paper-thin sitcom creatures designed solely to set up and deliver punch lines.

Unfortunately, the jokes are tired, and the directing is old-fashioned and stagey. The two stars slog on gamely, but they earn more sympathy than laughter.

The premiere, airing next Monday, Aug. 4, at 9 p.m., opens with an exchange that is typical of the show’s forced comedy: Allen (Grammer), a pompous Chicago lawyer, is delivering what sounds like a farewell speech. He concludes by saying that leaving “was an easy decision to make.”

“Yeah, real easy,” says a maintenance man, who’s the only other person in the room, “because your father fired your ass.”

“Just like he demoted you, Uncle Jerry,” says Allen.

In court, Allen meets Marcus, a storefront lawyer who is letting his soon-to-be-ex-wife walk all over him in their divorce settlement. Allen agrees to help Marcus fight back if Marcus will handle some of the pro bono cases that a judge made Allen take to avoid a contempt-of-court charge.

As the title gives away, at the end of the episode, the two decide to become partners.

Various characters keep telling Allen that he’s shifty and amoral and keep telling Marcus that he’s altruistic, but neither the characters’ behavior nor the actors’ performances reflect those general opinions. The only truly shifty thing Allen does is sneak into a priest’s residence to look for evidence of Marcus’ wife’s infidelity, and that’s arguably for a good cause.

That plotline does allow for some unforgivable puns about the “missionary” position and “the second coming.”

The supporting characters seem to have been pulled out of a sitcom grab bag. Allen has a shopaholic stepdaugher, Lizzie (McKaley Miller), who wears knee socks and shows up at random moments. Her mother is nowhere to be seen in the two episodes provided for review.

The characters’ dialogue sounds as if they all got together one day and decided they would talk as if they were on a sitcom. Discussing marriage, Laura says, “All I know is that I’m saving myself so when I get married it is forever.”

“Honey,” her grandmother says, “you can only save a pork chop for so long before it dries up and won’t attract anything but flies.”

Often the characters stop the conversation so they can set up their own punch lines. As Michael and Marcus are discussing Marcus’ marriage, Michael says, “Clearly I’m not an expert with women. One time a girl asked me to take off her blouse, and I said, ‘Fine, it doesn’t fit me anyway.’ ”

The round-heeled laugh track reacts approvingly to that line and nearly every other line that occurs where a joke should be.

In the second episode, which airs on Monday at 9:30, the partners pretend to be a gay couple to catch an unscrupulous wedding planner. Straight guys pretending to be gay is one of those surefire comic premises that almost always fail to fire. As usual, the two guys start squabbling as if they were a real couple.

Both their gay clients and Michael act especially stereotypical for the episode. One of the clients says, “Never in a billion years — or Cher’s lifetime — did we ever think we were going to win this.”

“There are two things that gay men simply will not tolerate,” says Michael. “Having their name misspelled on a latte and deception.”

Grammer and Lawrence, who are executive producers of the show, evidently felt some qualms about the stereotyping and about using gay marriage as a premise. Marcus says, out of the blue, “We’re making a mockery of a right these people struggled for, a right some of them still don’t have.”

The point of the episode’s subplot is equally fuzzy.

Ruth decides she’s going to straighten out Laura. Instead, Laura teaches Ruth how to cheat at cards so they can rob Ruth’s friends of a big wad of cash. Then Ruth makes Laura donate some of it to the church.

The show is being produced as a 10/90 deal, an increasingly common agreement in which the channel commits to running 10 episodes. If those episodes get sufficiently high ratings, the channel will order 90 more, bringing the total to a syndicatable 100.

Maybe Grammer and Lawrence figured that with the help of their fan bases they could skate through those first 10 episodes without coming up with clearly defined characters or an idea how to play them.

If Ebola and climate change and the threat of wars aren’t making you paranoid enough, the National Geographic Channel stands ready to help. Its ridiculously overheated “Urban Jungle,” a special in three parts (all on Sunday night), is eager to convince you that animals are massing against us, preparing to retake the planet. Yes, similar to that sci-fi movie with the apes.

The program serves up disconnected vignettes suggesting that our cities, suburbs and more remote outposts are overrun with elephants, snakes, mites, sloths, raccoons, bats.

A tracker named Boone Smith drops in on some of these places and uses night-vision gear to show the movements of these supposed invaders: coyotes in Chicago, bears in Lake Tahoe, leopards in Mumbai. These vignettes are supplemented with amateur footage — a man being trampled by a moose, wild dogs surrounding a pedestrian — that is intended to terrify but receives little elaboration.

Then there’s the narration, delivered in urgent, ominous tones. It’s big on statistics, without context or citation. Here’s a sampler:

“No one really knows how many rats live in New York. Some say eight million — one for every human. But there could be even more.”

“Some backyards can see up to 50 raccoons a night.”

“There are more creatures living in a single human house than there are people on earth.”

“A 10th of the weight of an average pillow isn’t pillow, but bug.”

There are worthwhile lessons in all this about thoughtless development and about human habits, whether garbage disposal or golf course building, that invite animals. As the narration puts it, “When we create a world better than the wilderness, the wild is sure to move in, whether we like it or not.”

But education isn’t the point here. The point is to make the world seem scarier than it really is.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Cinemax, 8:30 p.m. ET
One of Stanley Kubrick's undisputed masterpieces. This 1971 movie is bold, brilliant, funny, and unforgettable. It’s also violent, disturbing, unsettling and, it bears repeating, unforgettable. Malcolm McDowell stars, as an initially unrepentant thug roaming the desolate urban landscape of a dystopian future London. By the way: The way his young Alex is rigged up to watch things against his will in the mind-numbing Ludovico treatment? That’s how I feel every time I sit down to watch all of the new fall TV pilots…

MASTERPIECE MYSTERY!: "POIROT"
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
This is the second and last of the new Christie mysteries that will be shown on PBS, at least for now. (The final three stories in the series will be available starting next week on Acorn TV, and won’t appear on public television until later.) Tonight’s story, starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, is Dead Man’s Folly – and one of the interesting things about is that much of it was filmed at the late Christie’s actual estate, which she used as inspiration for her story’s setting in the original 1950s version. Speaking of which: the plot has to do with a “murder mystery party” gone awry, presenting a social role-playing phenomenon that really didn’t catch on for another few decades. Check local listings.

TRUE BLOOD
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
In this final-season story line, former Christian-leader vampire hater Sarah Newland (Anna Kamp) has gone underground, dyed her hair darker, and adopted a new religious belief system. But our heroes, undead and otherwise, believe she’s the key not only to the deadly (or undeadly?) vampire virus, but also to its antidote. And in tonight’s episode, they find her, and question her… and, for good measure, chain her.

THE STRAIN
FX, 10:00 p.m. ET
This fourth installment is the final episode that was sent to critics for preview – and it’s the one, in which our heroes finally get their hands on some physical evidence of what they’re up against, that raises The Strain to an even higher level of creepy. So enjoy – I sure did.

MANHATTAN
WGN America, 10:00 p.m. ET
One of the positive aspects of tonight’s second episode is how it veers away from where you presume the show is headed. John Benjamin Hickey, as scientist Frank Winter, was established in last week’s opener as the guy at the Manhattan Project who was on to the best time-saving, and thus life-saving, theory about building a practical atomic bomb. But this week, instead of having that theory embraced and adopted, it’s rejected by the other scientists – and so is Frank, who finds himself so ostracized that even a simple dinner party becomes an ordeal too annoying to endure.

Michael Johns, a finalist on American Idol season seven, died on Aug. 1, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed via multiple sources. The cause of death is believed to be a blood clot in his ankle.

The singer competed on the Fox music show in 2008 and came in eighth place. He followed with a full-length album, 2009's Hold Back My Heart, that included single "Heart on My Sleeve."

"Michael Johns was an incredible talent and we are deeply saddened by the news of his passing. He was a part of our AMERICAN IDOL family and he will be truly missed. Our hearts and prayers go out to his family and friends during this difficult time," read a statement posted on the show's official Facebook page.

Michael Johns was 29 when he auditioned for American Idol — the absolute upper limit of eligibility. For season seven, Johns auditioned for Idol in San Diego with a rendition of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Simon Cowell was the first judge to comment: "I thought that was a very good audition, Michael. You're like a white soul singer." During his time competing on Idol, Johns created a stir because he had been signed to a major label, Maverick, prior to auditioning.

Johns grew up in a family that had musical talent, describing his mother as having a "Doris Day" type voice. "My brother and sister both play piano and sing. My stepfather is a great singer too. I was always around music growing up," he told Billboard in 2008. He described his earliest musical memory, "Sitting around the family Pianola, which is a very old turn-of-the-century piano which plays itself – just like the ones in the old Western films."

As much as he loved music, Johns was an avid tennis player who dreamed of being a Wimbledon champion. At 15, he gave that idea up because, "that's when music found me and I have not looked back."

However tennis is what brought Johns from his native Perth to the United States. He received a tennis scholarship and he considered it his ticket to the States to pursue music.

He was going to attend Denver University. "I thought it was way too cold there and it turned out the coach had second thoughts anyway," he told Billboard in 2008. "I chose Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College as it was in the South and a lot of great music was coming out of there. I knew if I went to Los Angeles or New York, I could get swallowed up."

While attending ABAC, Johns met guitarist Roddie White. The two wrote songs together and performed on campus.

Johns played cover gigs in Atlanta, then joined a band call Film. They were together for 18 months and were offered deals, but the deals were for Johns as a solo artist and for his music publishing. Johns was 21 and the other band members were over 30. He described it as a difficult time and a "messy situation." He told the lead singer, Michael Sickler, that if they wanted their songs to see the light of day, he needed to take one of the deals.

Michael Goldberg signed Johns to Maverick as a solo artist. Johns recorded under his birth name, Michael Lee. He didn't take the last name Johns until 2006, as an homage to his grandfather, whose first name was John. Michael Lee was actually Michael John Lee, thus the plural "Johns."

Johns completed his album for Maverick and assembled a band called the Rising. "The label folded and my record never saw the light of day until I appeared on American Idol," he told Billboard. "Warner Bros. put the Maverick recordings up on iTunes."

Next, Johns was signed to Columbia by Tim Devine. But when many west coast label personnel were dismissed, a lot of developing artists were dropped, including Johns.

Johns told Billboard in the 2008 interview that he started watching Idol right from the beginning. "I was intrigued like the rest of the world. Kelly Clarkson was awesome and still is. I think she is the biggest reason why the show got as big as it did," he said. "She came out and legitimized the credibility of the show. Idol is the best platform these days for finding new talent."

Indeed, while Johns didn't win, his career as a singer was by no means stagnant. A favorite of Grammy-winning producer David Foster, he performed on the PBS television special, Hit Man: David Foster and Friends, which also featured such music luminaries as Michael Buble, Josh Groban, Blake Shelton and Andrea Bocelli. He also participated in many A-list charity events and appeared on a 2012 episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which stars Foster's wife Yolanda.

Johns leaves behind his wife, Stacey. The couple met at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood in 2003 and married in 2007.

Business NotesReport: Iconic Studio Ghibli May Cease New Japanese Anime Productions
By The Deadline.com Team - Aug. 3, 2014

Studio Ghibli, long home to the now-retired Oscar winner whom the Walt Disney Corp. has called the Walt Disney of Japanese animation, may shut its animation-production facilities because of the challenges of financing new features, according to an interview of an unnamed company insider posted on Japanese news sites.

The rumbles about the studio’s future have gotten louder in recent months after the latest retirement of Hayao Miyazaki, the 73-year-old director and animator whose Spirited Away won the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated feature. Miyazaki said he was stepping out of animation for good after his latest film, The Wind Rises, debuted last year, and went on to become his third Oscar nominee. When Disney took over distribution of Miyazaki’s films in the United States, it billed him as “the Walt Disney of Japanese animation.” Miyazaki’s many ardent fans famously include Pixar co-founder (and now head of Disney Animation) John Lasseter, who exec-produced the English-language translations of Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Spirited Away Hayao Miyazaki The Wind Rises grossed 11.6 billion yen ($113.4 million) in Japan, and another $5.1 million in the United States, but Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported the film had yet to make a profit.

The studio’s other prominent behind-the-camera leaders are also nearing retirement. Director Isao Takahata‘s last film, 2013′s The Tale of Princess Kaguya, is considered by close observers to almost certainly be his last, and he is older than Miyazaki. The studio’s co-founder and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki also stepped away last year from making films, but remains as the company’s general manager.

Other directors in the Ghibli fold haven’t been even as successful recently, creating a cash crunch for the studio as it continued to maintain a Japan-based production operation rather than shipping animation jobs overseas. As a result, said the unnamed company insider quoted in a story posted Japanese site News Cafe, Ghibli’s latest release, When Marnie Was There, “seems like it will be the last.”

Instead, the insider is quoted saying, “From here on, it appears as though this won’t be a studio that makes new works, but instead, manages its copyrights.”

In January, French publication Liberation wrote that Ghibli employees expected to be laid off after Marnie came out. Their contracts are largely scheduled to end soon. Marnie, directed by Hiramasa Yonebayashi (The Secret World of Arrietty) debuted last week to disappointing numbers, attracting just $3.7 million in its first two days.

Deadline called Wild Bunch, Ghibli’s partner, but could not reach anyone for comment. It’s late night in Japan, so we’ll be following up further as soon as possible.

"Partners" sure is an odd duck for FX. The sitcom, premiering Monday, feels like something you'd see on broadcast television, if only broadcast were still able to come up with modestly competent sitcoms.

After making a comfortable home for comedies like "Louie," "Wilfred," "Legit" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," FX unveils a rather old-fashioned show about two ill-matched law partners played by Martin Lawrence and Kelsey Grammer.

Lawrence ("Bad Boys") plays Marcus Jackson, an altruistic champion of the little guy, and Grammer ("Frasier") is Allen Braddock, who delights in being ruthless and is always on the lookout for billable hours from major clients.

Allen is such a sleazebag, his own father fires him from the family law firm, leaving Allen with very few options to pursue his career. Marcus is going through a divorce and is so acquiescent by nature, he's about to let his wife take him for nearly everything he's got, until Allen jumps into the picture and works out a more equitable property settlement.

The two men have so little in common, of course it makes sense for them to pair up, but that doesn't mean they either like or trust each other.

In the second of the two episodes airing Monday, the pair pose as a gay couple looking to engage the services of a wedding planner who is suspected of cheating her clients. It's a stock setup, but with the addition of the contemporary twist of same-sex marriage. There are very funny lines, but the episode skirts very close to the edge of homophobia - something you don't see happening in ABC's "Modern Family," for example, which just ended its season with the wedding of Cam and Mitchell.

The supporting cast includes McKaley Miller ("Hart of Dixie") as Allen's self-focused stepdaughter; Daniele Watts ("Django Unchained") as Marcus' daughter Laura; Telma Hopkins ("The Hughleys") as Marcus' outspoken mom; Edi Patterson ("Californication") as the investigator in the law firm; and Rory O'Malley ("Nurse Jackie") as the mostly useless office assistant. Virtually all of these roles are timeworn stock characters, as if to further remind us how little inventiveness went into the show's concept.

There is great chemistry between old pros Lawrence and Grammer, even if the scripts are spotty and feel about 20 years old, same-sex marriage references notwithstanding. Of course, it's great to see Grammer back in the sitcom harness. He reminded us of his extraordinary versatility in the two seasons of "Boss" on Starz, and now he reminds us again how great he is at playing comically pompous.

The show was created by Bob Boyett and Robert Horn and has been given one of FX's 10/90 models for new sitcoms. The network ordered 10 episodes of the show and if it clicks, they'll up the order to 90. FX did the same thing with Charlie Sheen's "Anger Management."

The approach seems more workable with middle-brow fare than it would for, say, "Legit" or "Wilfred" because it's based on the notion that the product has a sufficiently broad appeal to make it ripe for syndication deals.

Middle of the road - make that, middle of a very old, probably dirt road - though it may be, "Partners" at least has Grammer and Lawrence playing off each other to merit return visits for 10 episodes. But to make it worth your attention beyond that, the writing needs to be much better than it is in the first two episodes.

JUDY GARLAND MOVIE MARATHON
TCM, 6:00 a.m. ET
Today’s TCM 24-hour salute is to Judy Garland – and while her iconically unbeatable The Wizard of Oz is not part of today’s roster, lots of other important Garland films are. Start at 10 a.m. ET with 1944’s Meet Me in St. Louis (directed by Vincente Minnelli, whom she would marry the following year at age 23). Rejoin the festivities at 2 p.m. ET for 1948’s Easter Parade, in which she stars opposite Fred Astaire, and set the alarm clock or DVRs for midnight ET to catch 1954’s A Star Is Born, her dramatic tour de force opposite James Mason.

JAWS
AMC, 8:00 p.m. ET
Discovery Channel is rolling out its annual Shark Week starting this Sunday, and it was only last week that Syfy presented Sharknado 2: The Second One. Neither of those bizarre TV phenomena would exist if not for this 1975 Steven Spielberg film, which spawned not only a feeding frenzy of shark TV, but the entire concept of the modern movie blockbuster. But really – who needs a week of shark documentaries, or a goofy Syfy telemovie, when you can watch Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider clash on the high seas, in pursuit of, and being pursued by, the greatest Great White Shark in cinema history?

PARTNERS
FX, 9:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: Give FX credit for rolling the dice on a somewhat bold experiment here. They’re taking two sitcom stars from a previous TV generation, and pairing them in a new comedy about lawyers, with very different approaches and ethics, who join forces. The “odd couple” premise is one of TV’s oldest and most successful, so what makes Partners relatively daring? The fact that it’s an aggressively integrated comedy, taking Kelsey Grammer (who, as Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier, embodied one of the “whitest” characters in TV comedy) and placing him opposite Martin Lawrence (whose Martin sitcom character was just as plainly as proudly “black”). Whatever happens in the long run with this series, everyone involved gets credit, at least, for trying to break barriers and combine audiences.

NIXON BY NIXON: IN HIS OWN WORDS
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
These days, people have to be careful about what they write in an email, whether it’s deleted or not, if they fear it could surface later in the wrong hands (and those wrong hands, it appears, could indeed be the government). Well, the prior-generation precursor of that was President Richard Nixon’s predilection for secretly recording his own Oval Office conversations – intended for posterity, but eventually becoming the petard on which he was hoist, so to (Shakespearean) speak, during the Watergate era. Listen, tonight, to the stark contrast between Nixon’s public and private comments during the Sixties and Seventies – when, in some instances, he contradicted his public statement by proving, among other things, that he was a crook.

POV: "15 TO LIFE: KENNETH'S STORY
PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET
Nadine Pequeneza directed this new POV documentary, which looks at a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling about juveniles receiving especially hefty prison sentences – and looks at it by focusing on one case and one prisoner. Kenneth Young was 14 when he began committing brazen armed robberies in Florida, and 15 when he was caught and given a “15 to life” sentence for his crimes. Already imprisoned for more than a decade, Young now has a chance to have his case looked at again, given his efforts at redemption since his incarceration. “They should have tried to salvage this child instead of just throwing him away,” says one person in this documentary – but others, including one of Young’s victims, disagree. Check local listings.

There’s no question that Kenneth Young, 14 years old at the time of his arrest, was there, robbing two hotel clerks in Tampa, Florida in 2000. The POV documentary 15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story isn’t a story of guilt. We soon find that Young was along on a month-long spree of four robberies and an accomplice of a man almost 10 years older, a neighborhood crack dealer – his mother’s supplier. He was unarmed during at least one of the robberies.

We learn that Young grew up in one of Tampa’s ghettoes helping watch his teenaged sister's newborn while his mother would frequently go off on week-long drug benders. Shortly, we find that he, as a juvenile, got four consecutive life sentences for his crimes while the older accomplice, the presumed mastermind, got one.

The US Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that life sentences without parole given to juveniles were unconstitutional. Young, along with 77 other Florida inmates, became eligible for release or resentencing. The core issue of the documentary directed by Nadine Pequenza (premiering Monday night on PBS, 10 p.m., ET, check local listings) is not whether Young should have been punished. Its question examines whether he should be for the rest of his life, for crimes committed when he was, essentially, an unformed kid who couldn't know the full impact of his choices.

As the film follows Young, now 26, going up for resentencing, he had already spent 11 years in prison, a lot of it in solitary. He seems reformed and so does his mother, now sober. Their main offenses seem to start with being poor and uneducated.

While giving their story, much of it unfortunate, 15 to Life... doesn’t skirt the impact of Young’s crimes. One clerk from the Tampa robbery, Jennifer Norman, is clearly still traumatized more than a decade later but has forgiven him, in part, because he talked his accomplice out of raping her.

The other clerk, Sandra Christopher, is unconvinced about prison rehabilitation. At the hearing, she’s asked by a prosecutor, “What are you thinking when you have this gun pointed at your head?” She answers, “God and I are good. I went through a checklist (snaps her fingers) that fast. God and I are good. When they say your life flashes in front of your eyes – it does. As much as I know that he wants to be released, I’m not ready to have him walking around where I live.” She finishes flatly, “And I’m not moving.”

Young’s fate is deftly unraveled by Pequenza and 15 to Life... does the best that television can do when excavating the complex issues of crime, punishment and what brand of justice best serves society.

That’s to say it feels squarely journalistic and places the questions directly in the lap of the viewer.

The POV title sequence (and it’s one of the greats) starts each week with a clip of filmmaker Marshall Curry, director of a 2011 POV episode, saying, “The most interesting films are ones that take very strong points of view and bang them up against each other.”

ABC canceled “Bachelor Pad” after the 2012 season, but apparently the network decided it made a mistake.

Now it’s reviving the idea behind the “Bachelor” spinoff, reuniting former suitors on the show to go after one another, in “Bachelor in Paradise,” a new program premiering tonight at 8 p.m.

There’s one major difference between “Pad” and “Paradise.” In “Pad,” the contestants were competing for money, even though they really seemed more concerned about competing for notches on their bedpost.

This time the producers have done away with the competition element, which is just as well. The only draw of a show like this is seeing which contestants are going to hook up.

“Pad” drew mediocre ratings during its most recent season in 2012. The season finale averaged a 1.3 in adults 18-49, down from a 1.5 for its premiere.

“Paradise” will probably draw similar ratings. The network smartly scheduled its premiere the week after “Bachelorette” wrapped up, offering plenty of opportunities to promote the show to the right audience the past few weeks.

While the audience won’t be huge, it should see a lot of social media buzz, as all the “Bachelor”/”Bachelorette” shows do.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Peter Kunhardt's ("JFK: In His Own Words") documentary is based on 3,700 hours of secret recordings made by President Richard Nixon of phone conversations as well as those in the Oval Office, and other White House locations from 1971 to 1973. These recordings, known to only a few when they were made, have been studied by historians at the University of Virginia since 2000. Portions have been interwoven with archival footage and some of Nixon's post-White House interviews.

MY SAY "Nixon by Nixon" is damning -- a veritable self-demolition derby of words, lies (and audiotape) that could scuttle the very legacy that he cared so deeply about. His observations about Jews aren't just appalling, but sickening. His ideas about homosexuality, blacks, Catholics and even Protestants are medieval -- all offered to listeners with a disregard for fundamental human dignity, including his own.

That's sad, in fact tragic, but to make this even worse, Kunhardt has structured this broadcast to juxtapose Nixon's public statements about momentous historic events -- notably the war in Vietnam -- with his private comments. Did he order the bombing of dikes and dams in North Vietnam, he is asked by Dan Rather during a news conference? Absolutely not, he says -- even as the audiotape establishes the exact opposite. Sounding like Gen. Jack D. Ripper from "Dr. Strangleove," he verbally bludgeons a general into stepping up the air campaign against the North Vietnamese, later ruefully remarking to another that he wished he could just demolish the whole country.

Kunhardt makes a half-hearted effort at balance, with Nixon's words about his diplomatic efforts in China and the Soviet Union, but by then the damage is done. Is this program fair? After all, 3,700 hours is a vast span of time -- 154 days, to be exact -- and "Nixon by Nixon" may well be an exercise in posthumous character assassination. Let the historians decide, but do listen to the words. He did say them, and Nixon can't hide from that part of the legacy, even from the grave.

Warner Bros. has shown Big Bang Theory stars Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco the money.
After protracted negotiations that pushed back the show’s Season 8 start date until Wednesday, the trio have agreed to new three-year contracts worth $1 million an episode, per Deadline. (That’s up from the $300K-an-episode they had been earning.) When all the perks are factored in — including signing bonuses and back-end fees — the actors will likely pocket north of $90 million over the three years.
With Parsons, Galecki and Cuoco on board, and co-stars Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik already signed, all eyes turn to Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar (who are currently fetching $125 and $75K per episode, respectively). The pair remain in active talks are are expected to close new pacts today or, at the latest, tomorrow.
Back in March, CBS renewed Big Bang for three more seasons — through May 2017 — contingent on the cast’s contracts staying current. According to Deadline, the actors’ new contracts leave open the possibility of an 11th season.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images